15 Timeskip and Elves

After the whole ordeal with the vampires was over, our group spent a few more months in Ruberios relaxing and taking it easy. It wasn't like Luminous couldn't find us if we left now that she took an interest in me, so we decided to take it slow.

Yue decided to hand around me a lot more and now refuses to leave my side unless I'm using the bathroom. Mio and her are constantly clinging to my arms whenever we go anywhere with Yue preferring my left side while Mio takes my right. Tomoe and Alice have begun training together day and night while Tomoe refines her style.

When she was created via [World Sage], she already had most of the information about swordsmanship ingrained into her using my memories as a template, but swordsmanship with a straight weapon like I was taught and swordsmanship with a katana was entirely different, so Tomoe began to train with Alice regularly and the two became fast friends.

We heard of the planned reformation of the Kingdom of Ruberios into the Holy Empire of Ruberios and me not being surprised raised a bit of a stir among my followers. Eventually, they found out why when Luminous crashed one of our dinners and ate with us. She was probably trying to get back at me for getting the last word in during our last meeting, though she said it was relaxing to get away from being the hidden ruler and goddess of the west from time to time. Unfortunately for her, I used this opportunity to lay my trap, and when she tasted my food, she instantly fell in love.

She also stepped up her recruitment attempts. Not as a vassal of hers, of course, but as her personal chef. Although I know she was never serious during those times, as she knew I wouldn't accept, it was still nice to see her come by to enjoy dinner with us.

Yue re-established her relationship with Luminous after that first time. It started off a little rocky because Yue was dealing with both the guilt of running away and the pressure of Luminous' high expectations. Luminous, on the other hand, was a bit more pensive about approaching Yue since she also felt guilty for ignoring her sister's warnings about Julius until after her death and failing to kill him to avenge her sister. It took some time, but slowly they began to make up.

And like this, nearly another year passed. We set off from Ruberios after exploring every nook and cranny. I taught Luminous how to teleport without leaving a magicule trail, so now she could pop up and say high whenever she needed us for something.

Our first trip was through the western nations. We went through a lot of hardships after leaving Ruberios' modern infrastructure and stepping into a more realistic medieval world, but we endured. There was one incident where I fought off a number of petty nobles who wanted my women for themselves. Needless to say, I think Flintwood will see that Archdaemon come to power sooner than canon, if only by a few years.

One of the most interesting things that happened though, was when I ran into Leon Cromwell. He was still a little kid at the time and I chose to take him with us on our journey as our disciple. He became Alice's apprentice in the sword and Yue's apprentice in magic. We also 'searched' for Chloe in this timeline for a few years before I gave him my opinion that she may have been summoned to the future.

After four years of training with us, I sent him on his way with a highly advanced Platinum Colored Magisteel Saber with a few enchantments of my own with it. I don't know if it was a coincidence or not, but a year later, I heard he declared himself a Demon Lord and fought off Kazaream.

I did wonder if I should delete the undead spirit of Kazaream or not using [Spirit Magic] to stop the Yuki problem in the future, but I ultimately decided he was necessary for Rimuru's growth so I didn't interfere.

A few more things occurred during these quiet few years. The first is I became a Saint at the age of 20. I was so excited that I jumped for joy. While I didn't gain any Ultimate Skills upon my evolution, my Magicule reserve exploded and I was several-fold more powerful than before. I became extremely handsome to the point that even some straight men were questioning their sexuality after seeing me.

Normally when this occurs in web novels, the protagonists can just brush it off as a gag, but now it was extremely awkward. Men and women were constantly being polite to me and trying to kiss up to me. I was even targeted by slavers on more than one occasion who wanted to sell me to some very powerful and very wealthy gay men or the queen of a particular nation who needed a bit of love...

For her, I actually just used some [Metamorphosis Magic] on the crown prince of a different kingdom to make him go from an unloved ugly bastard with a heart of gold into a total adonis with the sex drive of an incubus. He was a real-life example of the ugly duckling story and it even became a fairy tale in the western nations. Of course, this was the real world, not a fairy tale, and the queen was married to a king...

Long story short, I may have started a war when that same crown prince got the queen pregnant due to their copious amounts of sex, but that's a tale for another day.

...

Now I was currently sitting in the back of a cart being hauled off the slave market. My girls were nowhere to be seen, as they weren't captured, and I was being kept in pristine condition. They even allowed to keep my enchanted jewelry as it made me look nicer. They would just take it from me after I was sold to re-sell later.

Why was I in this predicament? Well, it has to do with a certain recent announcement of an elven slave auction going on in the Kingdom of Dorei. I looked over at my fellow slaves, all of them being elves as well. One, in particular, seemed like he was despairing more than the rest.

"Hey, kid. You okay?" I asked the young male elf. He looked up at me and saw that I was human and became bitter, though he still smiled at me.

"I'm fine human. There isn't any problem." He replied with a slightly annoyed tone.

"Well I only ask because from what I sensed, you are easily much stronger than these guards. So how did they capture you?" I ask again.

This time the elf looks up at me in surprise before lowing his head in shame. "I-nevermind, it's not important. I just deserve to be in here." He said with a defeated voice.

I raised my eyebrow at him again before sighing. "Look, kid. No one deserves to be a slave. No matter what you've done. What happened was probably an accident and isn't your fault, especially if you are so torn up about it."

The elf looked up at me with awe for a moment before swallowing. he seemed to be wondering if he could trust me with his information but decided it was probably fine. His eyes seemed to be full of resolve for some reason.

"You're right. I was being foolish... Tell me human, do you mind if I tell you my tale?" He asked.

I almost wanted to say 'No' just to see the look on his face but I nodded in the end. I was just too curious.

He told me a tale of how the Elves who lived in the forest to the east lived under the protection of a great barrier that kept them safe from outside threats. Humans loved to kidnap elven citizens to use as slaves for their natural strength and beauty so they had to live in an isolated society in the forest home of Veldora.

For many generations, they lived in peace, but recently, one of their barrier masters had left to marry into another kingdom's royal family. There were a number of problems affecting the elves at the time. A huge wave of young and talented elven men and women were growing up at the same time and wanted to prove themselves to the ruling cast. They formed a new faction known as the New Blood faction.

The problem was that the village tightly controlled the birthrates and none of the younger elves were allowed to have children as the old faction, known as the Autumn Faction, held exclusive reproductive rights in the village. There was also a small overpopulation problem occurring as there were now more elves inside the small barrier than it could sustain. These factors combined caused large tensions in the village, as the New Blood faction couldn't improve their own standing or situation. Furthermore, only a very small amount of younger elves could get any sort of position of power due to the Autumn faction holding onto the positions for much longer periods of time without taking apprentices unless absolutely necessary.

Despite being a member of the New Blood faction, this elf had a once-in-a-generation talent in magic, so he was chosen to be the apprentice to the former barrier master and maintain the barrier after he left. Seeing that the tension between his faction and the Autumn faction was slowly growing, he tried to create a compromise. He brought a proposal to the elven council to expand the barrier's range a few times over and allow for more room under its protection. This would allow the village to grow and lessen the rift between the younger and older generations.

He was given permission but something happened. The barrier failed for a while and human slavers seemingly were poised for just that moment and pounced. They captured many young elven people before the barrier was restored.

The council then blamed him and his faction for the failure of the project and allowing the slavers to kidnap elves for the first time in centuries. They used this as an excuse to exile the entire New Blood faction and tighten control.

Of course, since most elves haven't stepped foot outside of their village in years, they were all captured immediately by human slavers and were going to be sold off at a large auction soon.

After telling me his story, with tears in his eyes, I couldn't take it anymore. "You're an idiot." I said.

The elf looked at me with shock before lowing his head in shame. "That's right. I was too confident in my own abilities and it led to my village exiling so many of my kin. We are all falling into slavery because of me..." He began to weep a bit before I bonked him over the head.

*BONK*

"That's not what I meant. Even if the other elves were confident in your abilities to expand the barrier, they wouldn't let you alone tamper with it by yourself. This was something concerning the survival of the entire village, they would have brought in several barrier experts and may have even recalled the original master back temporarily to help you." I said to which the elf suddenly looked up at me with shock.

"Furthermore, what were the humans doing so close to your secret elven settlement in the first place? You said they hadn't captured an elf from your village in the past few hundred years right? Did you think the slavers were just sitting outside your barrier waiting for it to go down? No." I said.

"Wait! You mean-" He tried to speak but I interrupted him.

"I'm not finished yet. Furthermore, the slavers only kidnapped young elves right? Elves stop aging past 20, so they would have no way of knowing which elves are young and which are old. Furthermore, they couldn't justify banishing hundreds of elves from the village just because one person from their faction screwed up. It sounds to me like the old bastards were trying to get rid of their political rivals all in one fell swoop. Getting rid of the young elves would also solve the overpopulation problem as well as giving the older ones more time to stay in power without having to take apprentices since they'd need to wait at least a few more decades for new elves to be born and grow up." I said before looking into the eyes of the now horrified elf. "You were betrayed."

The other elves who were in the cart with me and were listening to the story were horrified. Never did they believe that they were sold out and literally sold into slavery by their own kinsmen. Their blood boiled and their auras became darker. I could tell that they were feeling a mix of despair and deep-rooted hatred.

I sighed out loud before addressing the crowd. "Alright, elven ladies and gentlemen. Now you know the truth. I ask what will you do about it? Will you sit there and wallow in your misery and self-hatred as slaves, or do you want to break out of here and cause a bit of mayhem?"

'Let's do it! Let's break out!" one of them yelled.

"We've gotta get our revenge on those bastards in the Autumn faction!" Another one screamed.

"Yeah" (x4)

I smile a bit before I hold up my hand to calm them and draw their attention towards me. It's a good thing I severed the space between the outside of the cart and the inside, otherwise, the driver would have heard the whole conversation.

"Alright, I've got a plan. I still have access to my magic and I can arm you all with weapons. The slavers are bringing all of the elves they captured from your village to a single place for a grand auction. The first of its kind. When we get to the auction center, we will be among other slaves, both human and elvish-" I say but I am interrupted by the elf I was talking to earlier.

"When we get there, we will free our brothers and sister and we shall riot. We will have our revenge on the slavers and march back to Greenwood and take back our homes and our honor!" He yelled.

"YEAH!!!" (x6)

I smiled before severing all of our bindings with a bit of [Spatial Magic] and pulling out a few dozen bows and shortswords from my Dimensional Storage Ring. They each take and bow while looking at them in awe. I may or may not have been creating new Unique Grade items from time to time as my hobby. I don't know how it happened in the original, but I also ended up creating Dead End Rainbow for Luminous at one point. She will eventually end up giving it to Hinata, but that is for another time.

One of the elves began looking around for some arrows before she looked at me with a questioning face. "What about arrows?" She asked.

I picked up one of the bows from the pile before drawing the bowstring. An arrow made of spirit particles, not magicules, was instantly formed. This shut them up as they all smiled. I un-nock the bow and set it into the pile of several dozen.

I'm unsure if it was fate or a coincidence, but after they finished getting ready we arrived outback of a large building. The driver finally turned around only to be in shock that all of his cargo of slaves had freed himself while he was driving.

As he opens his mouth to say something I immediately grab his tongue and put a smile knife in his mouth. "Squeek and your dead," I said to which he only faintly nodded. "Are all of the other slaves inside?"

He nodded. I then knocked him out and left him chained up in the same shackles he had us in. It was dark, so we required minimal stealth on our part. The auction was just getting started, so there wasn't much security anywhere that wasn't in the main auditorium.

We made our way to the outer wall of the building. I used [Magic sense] to peer through the walls and sensed a huge number of people all huddled together in the storage space in the back. All the cages were on the other side of the wall so I knew we only needed to bust down this one to get them out. I detected no guards in the immediate vicinity, so I prepared to use a bit of [Creation Magic] to get rid of the wall but before I did, I felt an arm on my shoulder.

"Human. Before we do this, I must ask. What is your name?" It was the elf who I was talking to earlier.

"My name is Shiki," I said. "What is yours?"

"I am Toranir." He replied.

I smirked. "Alright Tor, let's do this," I said as I broke down the wall.

It was time to nick the problem of elven slavery in the bud and get rid of these slavers once and for all.

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A/N: So I was looking through the wiki and came across the fact that the elves only really began to be enslaved around 300 years ago since that was when their barrier was compromised from a 'rather heretical and youthful individual of their community' who wanted to prove himself.

It seems a lot happened 300 years before canon started. Hakuro was born, so were Leon and King Gazel. The elve's barrier began to fail and Veldora's battle with adult Chloe.

So much material to work with.